Travel takes flight: How Trip.com leveraged long-term commission increases to grow sales by 191%

The APAC travel industry is experiencing robust growth, with 30% of travellers in the region planning to increase their travel spending in 2024.

Leading this surge is Trip.com, which saw a remarkable 191% increase in sales in 2023 thanks to their innovative affiliate marketing strategy. Gina Phua, Affiliate Marketing Manager at Trip.com, reveals the secrets behind their success, highlighting the pivotal role of data and the transformative impact of partnering with Skimlinks.

Key Stats:

2023 vs 2022

• Click: 256%+
• Sales: 191%+
• Order value: 181%+

Please tell us a bit of background about you and your role at Trip.com.

I first got involved with affiliate marketing and partnerships at a startup, then took on an agency role where I launched and built up affiliate strategies for global brands in the APAC region. Five years into affiliate marketing, I’m now at Trip.com, still learning and growing with this fast-evolving industry and developing Trip.com’s affiliate network partnerships for APAC.

Where does affiliate marketing fit into your e-commerce strategy? 

Affiliate marketing is one of our fastest-growing channels, quickly becoming a top e-commerce channel in overall contribution in the past few years. Much more attention is being paid to how we can utilize affiliate marketing to grow awareness while remaining cost-effective, which is one of the key advantages of this marketing channel.

We are now looking into expanding and diversifying our partner mix and better optimizing tracking and attribution to more fairly reward partners driving top-of-funnel traffic.

We know data is really important to how you approach performance marketing. How do you use data in your affiliate strategy?

Within travel, it is important to understand when and where our audience is looking to travel and to be mindful in curating content and campaigns around that. For example, sharing the top travel destinations with our publishers helps create evergreen articles on the most popular cities their demographic travels to and goes a long way in driving conversions.

How does Trip.com work with Skimlinks?

Trip.com partners with Skimlinks by mainly providing a commission increase over longer periods of time, allowing enough time for content publishers to create content and gain traction on their articles. We also actively share upcoming campaigns and trends for content ideas.

By doing so, Skimlinks has helped us to increase brand visibility, expand reach to new and high-quality audiences, and foster long-term partnerships with more content media publishers. 

Travel is a popular category for commerce content. What were the key drivers of your affiliate success in 2023, and how can publishers best collaborate with you given the competition?

Travel as an industry is growing as a whole, but Trip.com has seen accelerated growth beyond that through being aggressive in our openness to test new strategies and placing high value on building long-lasting partnerships that continue to grow.

Skimlinks helped us build these great relationships with content publishers. As a result, we’ve gained an edge over competitors in being selected as a preferred partner to be included in content articles, allowing for greater brand exposure and growth in conversions.

We love brainstorming with publishers who are transparent in how they work and what resources and support they need. Testing out new ideas and sharing insights and trends are ways to find new win-win solutions, and we are always open to publishers hungry to do more!

What will Trip.com focus on for 2024 in the performance channel? 

We will likely continue to prioritize growth and expansion, optimizing with top-performing publishers and seeking new affiliate opportunities to reach audiences in newer geographic regions while launching innovative campaigns.

What do you love most about Skimlinks?  

Skimlinks is an invaluable partner for their affiliate expertise and commerce content  tools. The team helps us overcome the challenge of driving performance with content and media publishers. The team is also transparent and eager to help, sharing insights and opportunities when there are opportunities to do so, allowing us to grow a stronger partnership built on win-win strategies.